Drivalia Portugal Reviews 

Drivalia Portugal is an absolute nightmare from start to finish. First of all, they are practically impossible to reach: calling or emailing is pointless because you either get no answer at all or the most generic replies that don’t help in any way.

But the real horror begins when you go to pick up your car. You’re aggressively pressured from every angle to buy extra insurance – often through scare tactics about “huge risks” if you don’t. It’s obvious the staff are trained to guilt-trip and intimidate you into paying for unnecessary add-ons. Even if you’ve already arranged proper insurance beforehand, they’ll still push hard to make you buy more.

The whole experience feels like a trap: after a long flight, tired and with your luggage, you’re confronted with this high-pressure sales pitch that completely ruins your holiday mood.

Absolute crooks.
They still haven’t returned my deposit and took €40 from my account because i returned the car to them at 7.30am instead of 8am.
The car for a week was supposed to cost €100, by the end of it all it cost almost €300.
These guys should be jailed for fraud!!

Nothing but hidden fees and nonsense. AVOID.

Hired car from Faro Airport. Recommended I take a toll tag and charged for tag and took a €100 deposit for toll charges. Imagine my surprise to later learn that a few months previously it had been decided to cancel all toll charges on the Algarve and there was absolutely no need for any tag or deposit. Despite numerous emails no response or refund.

Picked up the car in Faro (beach holiday). Returned the car that and there was some sand on the floor. They wanted 90 euros for cleaning charges. Then they charged me 390 euros for aleaged damage with no report of invoice. Tried to contact them and no answer to phone or email DO NOT USE!!!

Son unos sinvergüenzas, tener mucho cuidado de alquilar aquí, yo he alquilado un coche durante 7 días con la opción mas cara de 0 franquicia y al entregar el vehículo el ultimo día, lo revisaron por fuera y por dentro dijeron que estaba perfecto, y al día siguiente me hicieron un cargo de 24,45€ les envié 5 email para preguntar a que se debe el cargo y a día de hoy NO han contestado, pero si han cargado los 24,45€.
NO ALQUILAR AQUI HAY MEJORES OPCIONES.
Be very careful when renting from this company, they are scammers. I rented a car for 7 days and had paid the 0 deductible option. On the day of return, everything was fine, there was no external or internal damage, and the scoundrels charged me €24.45 for no reason. I have sent them 5 emails and they have not replied to any of them. Be very careful with these pirates.

Worst experience and service. We booked a car from Belgium. To our surprise we didnt receive our car because revolt creditcard is not accepted. It was nowhere mentioned. We booked from other companies and it went without any problem

AVOID these scam merchants. Faro branch charged me 350 Euros for a minor scuff on the bumper that I wasn't responsible for. It was so minor I didn't notice it on my inspection. Saw them scamming someone else for something even more trivial. Avoid Avoid Avoid.

This is the most fraudulent and terrible car rental service have ever seen with so terrible customer service,the one at benfica,lisbon portugal

I once again travelled to Oporto by plane for some meetings in the city. From my previous positive experience I choose Drivalia to rent a car and once again the service was a five star one, from the electric shuttle picking me up on time with extreme care to look at the flight details to the immaculate car made available.

While traveling to Portalegre for work, my vehicle broke down, which was extremely annoying and caused me a huge inconvenience! However, it turned out to be an opportunity to experience the excellent service from Ayvens, which immediately provided me with a solution. They arranged a replacement vehicle from a very well-located Drivalia store, which managed to supply a car identical to mine! I never thought it would be possible to resolve the issue so quickly!

Wish I could tell i had a pleasent experience when renting a car with Drivalia but unfortunately it is not the case.
Paid for a BMW X1 and got a skoda suv with scratches all over, badly stained seats and still had to leave a 4050 euros deposit to get the crap.
My first and last experince with Drivalia.

Won't ever use them again even if they offered me a rental for free. Booked through a renowned 3rd party company, when arriving at the desk in Lisbon I was told the deposit amount was much higher than that of my voucher and of course, that which I budgeted on, as well as ensuring my credit card had sufficient funds to cover the amount on the voucher. Turns out their deposit prices increased between the time of booking and the time of pick up without apparently advising the 3rd party companies, so based on the options offered to me at that time and me being too late to cancel my booking, I ended up paying almost the same price as my actual booking (so basically almost double) to have the deposit amount halved, the other 2 options on offer were not options I was in a position to choose at the time. Could have covered the full deposit by debit card but it's not an accepted method of payment for them apparently.
Absolute shambles.

First of all, you have to go by shuttle bus to the pick up office. We waited a very long time for the shuttle and we ended up not getting a seat on Drivalias shuttle bus. I tried to call their office five times – no answer. Luckily a shuttle bus from another company took mercy and drove us to the office. At the office another wait for 2 hours!! In all, it took 3 hours to collect the car. And it wasn’t even the car I’ve ordered (I ordered a VW) but we got a very small Peugeot 208 instead. On top of that it was very difficult to understand the terms and conditions for insurance. I had a question to the drop off and again – no answer on the phone despite of several calls. No answer on email either although Drivalia Faro had five days to answer a simple question. I had to call the Drivalia main office in Portugal to finally get through to the office in Faro. What a disaster. Rent your car somewhere else.

We received excellent service when picking up and returning the car at the Setubal office. The office employee Laisa helped us with useful and precise explanations and advice. Thank you, Laisa.
The Skoda Kamiq we rented was good to drive, but the lack of car play made using the GPS phone extremely difficult. Which cost us a missed exit on a dark rainy evening and an additional toll. We think the company should have taken care of such necessary trifles. At least provide a basic bracket so that the phone can be fixed in a proper vertical position.
If we need to rent a car again, we will contact Drivalia again.

We live in Portugal near Faro and unfortunately our car broke down on the way home from Tavira. Our insurance company collected our car and we were told to go to Drivalia to take a hire car for a few days. Sadly our mechanic was on holiday so we extended the hire, at our own cost, for an extra 2 weeks. Drivalia and it's staff at the Faro office have been amazing!! We made a mistake on our online booking, and a gentleman from the Lisbon office actually called me to say don't worry the car is available and just pay the difference when you collect the car. They have been so helpful, friendly and professional, and I would recommend them if you need a hire car when you arrive in Faro. Phillip Weyman

Charging €20 extra for toll fee while it was only €0.60.

System activation cost €20, what a trick to make extra profits.

The only result of doing this kind of business is receiving a 1 star review.

what a horrible experience
in the middle of Downhill Serra de Estrella the car just stopped reacting, No steering no breaks and I almost flew off the road.
new BMW ser 1.
When i came back to them they said it was fine and they 'will check' but they have done nothing. not even sorry.
only care about money
Horrible Service,

Car was fine although had lots of dents which is not a problem but the guy didn't seem to mark any down that I pointed out. This raised suspicion so I took plenty of pics. Upon returning they instantly pointed out the scratch I had asked the guy to mark down and wanted to charge me for it. I kind of expected this as I hadn't taken there extra insurance out which is a known car rental scam. Once I got defensive and showed them my pictures that I took when I picked the car up that where date stamped they backed down. Advice to anyone renting a car off them or any other company for that matter make sure you take plenty of pictures.

After seeing the response from company I am glad they apologised and admitted there staff acted untrustworthy and poorly